After the acquisition of Great Plains in the early part of this decade, Microsoft made the move to replace Pervasive SQL, the existing database for Great Plains, with the MSDE platform. MSDE made sense at the time and allowed Microsoft to phase out the Pervasive SQL platform in a quick and easy fashion. For users still on the MSDE platform, what was once free and easy has become a ticking time bomb that needs to be defused.
The MSDE or Microsoft SQL Desktop Engine Platform has restrictions on it that will cause issues for any company that has grown since it first installed the Great Plains/MSDE solution. These limitations include:
Support for up to 2 CPU on a Windows NT or Windows 2000 server
No publishing for transaction replication
No Database Server Failover Support
No full-text search
No GUI interface
No OLAP
No English Query
No SQL books online
Additionally, the current MSDE version has been discontinued and will soon be no longer supported. As SQL is a back-end server, customers who have purchased this licensing probably are not aware of the serious issues that could affect their ERP application. The bottom line is that if your existing Dynamics GP solution is utilizing this database you should make all necessary arrangements to upgrade and move off of this platform ASAP.
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